I watched T1 in secret as a kid and had nightmares for weeks

. That was not a family movie.

Imo T2 was at first planned as a worldwide cash cow and it excelled at that. Keeping the dark athmosphere in, that is very much needed for the story , would have prevented that. So he basically sabotaged his own movie putting in "jokes" and light hearted funny scenes with no obvious connection to the movie to mitigate the violence and disturbing topic. By that he completely shot his own movie in the foot but created a feel good buddy story instead of a dystopian action movie it was meant to be.
So I kinda get Cameron. With T2 he was set for life.Art direction was only part of the script.
Imo a good example for T1 is the game Kingdom Come Deliverance that doesnt compromise at all and by that feels immersive and true to the creators ideas. Or the Robocop game also wasnt AAA but so much better that it didnt push a company agenda but a creators idea. These games are still there. For a time I thought I wouldnt go back to video games because tripple A is so lifeless now like Hollywood but other developers jumped in. Its a great time to like video gaming if you ignore the big players.
If you want a little sci fi horror like I can highly recommend "Observer Redux". Rutger Hauers last appaerance before he died. Such an immersive game.